Little Flower School gets $1 million donation

A $1 million donation recently given to Little Flower School has a lot in common with a large donation Sacred Heart-Griffin received in 2006.

PETE SHERMAN

A $1 million donation recently given to Little Flower School has a lot in common with a large donation Sacred Heart-Griffin received in 2006.

Each gift was anonymous and for the same amount. Each was made in honor of Sister Mary Pauletta Overbeck, the first principal of Little Flower. Each is to be used for tuition assistance and scholarships. Each came at the start of a new school year.

For Little Flower, the timing was perfect.

“It couldn’t have come at a better time,” said Little Flower principal Carissa Cantrell. “We are up huge amounts in enrollment. It’s such a good time to be at Little Flower.”

Enrollment at Little Flower, 900 Stevenson Drive, jumped from 257 last year to 300 this year. Cantrell said interest from the gift will allow the school to provide 50-percent tuition breaks to as many as 50 students a year. Individual tuition at Little Flower is $2,400 a year.

“He or she is going to affect so many kids with this gift,” Cantrell said.

With tuition needs essentially covered for years, Cantrell said, the school can turn its attention to other pressing needs.

“We can now continue to grow programming, our curriculum, our technology. Our wish lists can now be covered.”

Cantrell said she doesn’t know the giver’s identity. She learned about the donation only recently, when Little Flower’s pastor, Rev. Msgr. John Ossola, brought her the news.

“Father Ossola came to me and said, ‘I have something to tell you. I think we have a million-dollar donation for tuition. Let’s have a meeting.’”

Overbeck, 94, a resident of Sacred Heart Convent, said she has known the giver of the two donations for years. A student of hers decades ago, the donor, who lives in a modest home, continues to keep in touch, she said.

“It’s a beautiful story. This person has kept in touch all of these years, no matter where, no matter what. I am just deeply humbled,” she said. “Just this fall again, I got a thank-you note from a mother whose child received a scholarship from Sacred-Heart Griffin.”

She knew the Little Flower donation was in the works. But she wasn’t aware of the amount until The State Journal-Register asked her how she felt about it.

“I’m just a bit baffled. I don’t know what to say — oh Lord, I am not worthy,” Overbeck said.

Overbeck entered the Dominican Sisters convent in 1932 and taught at Cathedral Grade School in the 1930s before founding Little Flower in 1948. She stayed there for 27 years and then went on to direct religious education in parishes throughout Illinois, Minnesota and California.

She came back to the area in 1980. While a broken hip has slowed her down a bit, she still works, handling correspondence and secretarial duties for the Illinois Church Action on Alcohol and Addiction Problems.

As far as donations to schools go, the Springfield Catholic Diocese’s finance office isn’t aware of any others this size in recent years, said diocesan spokeswoman Kathie Sass.

Pete Sherman can be reached at 788-1539.

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